Weekend reading: A world of lunacy

One of the many reasons I love the Mr Money Mustache blog is the MacGyver-like way the Mustachioed one has welded an ecological message onto his financial freedom message.

(Well, that and and the swearing. We’re too tame to do it around here!)

Not surprisingly, I loved his latest post where he observes the weird spending habits of an alien race as seen from outer space, and then sees just the same thing back home on Earth:

In one incident, I traveled to a distant suburb with my son to attend a child’s birthday party […]

At the party, every food was an unrecognizable assembly of chemical compounds ripped out of a brightly-colored box, served on styrofoam plates which were promptly discarded into a black plastic bag.

Every gift was a plastic and metal recreation of a famous movie character or vehicle, ripped out of another plastic package. There was a television in the kitchen blaring news and advertisements.

The unhealthy parents drank beer and ate cake, and sighed about not having enough time or money to spend more time taking care of their home, or their kids, or themselves.

All of this took place in a neighborhood with beautiful walking paths and parks, and a modern utopia of a school just down the road. But every weekday at 2:45 PM, an ominous horror begins. An immense and powerful passenger vehicle will ease down the road and come to a halt at the prime spot of the school’s pickup loop.

And the engine will be left running.

As ever, Mr Money Mustache has a plan to deal with it – and to his credit he isn’t advocating the use of tactical nuclear warheads – so go read it.

Product of the week: Some new hydro-electicity backed bonds are offering 7% a year says The Guardian, but I’d note investors in similar solar mini bonds might have lost the lot recently. This new offer from LoCO2 is in conjunction with well-respected Triodos Bank, which is somewhat reassuring.

Mainstream media money

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That compoundingInterests post on cash/rebalancing is really quite remarkable. And easier to implement than a CAPE strategy of determining a cash position.

That is, of course, only for those with “investment” cash as opposed to emergency fund cash – the liquidity:return polarity. I offer a white handkerchief, rather than a full surrender flag, there’s clearly more to learn. Beats 26 current accounts as a way of putting it to work 😉

“Opportunity comes in strange, lumpy, and often nonlinear ways.” Nonfuckinglinear. I don’t know what he means by it. I suspect he doesn’t know what he means by it. Why not just copy Dame Edna and say “spooky”?

“That compoundingInterests post on cash/rebalancing is really quite remarkable.” It’s an explanation of the idea called “volatility harvesting”, as achieved by rebalancing. The £15k annual ISA allowance will let lots of people use a rebalancing strategy if they want, combined with harvesting 3%-5% p.a. on their cash pro tem. Of course, the professionals can’t compete with the amateurs when it comes to getting a return on the cash fraction of the portfolio. Given that the ISA allowance is annual, and that the high-paying regular saver accounts tend to last for one year, there’s a case that re-balancing annually is an easy and natural thing to do.

If the amateurs stick to cheap tracker investments for their S&S, mostly the professionals can’t compete with that either. I’m rather stumped to see how either pros or amateurs can do much with bond returns at the moment though. And as for property, is investing in commercial property in mature economies sensible in the internet age? dunno^2. Commodities? We keep piles of bog rolls in the spare room, and tins of sardines. And a stock of cooking foil: stored electricity, that is! Our agricultural commodities are tins of tomatoes, pears, lychees, and corned beef. It’s all investing and diversifying, innit?

I just caught up and read the CompoundMyInterests post. I couldn’t resist knocking up a quick spreadsheet to try out various scenarios, and it is an interesting idea. But two things spring to mind:

1) For the best results you’d need a really volatile stock.. and hope it stays volatile (goes down and up)
2) Obviously there’s more than a fair amount of churn going on! So once you factor in your dealing fees, or spreads if you take the spreadbetting route, it’s not going to look so attractive